Abstract
For over ten years the existence of a ferroelectric phase transition in has been the object of a strong controversy despite early Raman results which revealed a splitting of the soft mode at low temperature. We report here the results of an inelastic-neutron-scattering study of a 3.5 at. % Li crystal which show, for q≠0, a corresponding splitting of the TA branch between a-polarized and c-polarized phonons and no condensation of the TA mode. The phonon assignment is based on measurements made in the presence of a bias electric field. These results confirm the existence of a cubic-to-tetragonal transition in even for relatively low concentrations. They reveal the order-disorder nature of this transition and the strong coupling of c-polarized TA phonons to the spontaneous polarization. A strong anisotropy of the dispersion surface is also shown to explain the asymmetric shape of the phonon peaks.
- Received 16 June 1993
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.49.1503
©1994 American Physical Society